FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT SALMAN RUSHDIE - PAGE 4

NEW DELHI:With Islamic seminaries and hardline community elements engineering outrage against author Salman Rushdie's visit to Rajasthan for attending the Jaipur Literature Festival , the Centre has issued an advisory asking Delhi and Rajasthan police to take all precautionary measures to avert any possible trouble. The advisory follows indication that Rushdie would turn up for the literature festival. Though the advisory doesn't mention Rushdie's plans, it suggested that he may turn up for the festival on any day from January 20 and January 24. The Union home ministry has asked Delhi and Rajasthan police to take all measures to prevent any kind of communal disturbances in view of Rushdie's proposed visit.

NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW: The "secular parties" on Tuesday were falling over each other to coddle the fatwa-issuing clerics and support their latest directive not to allow Salman Rushdie to attend the literary festival at Jaipur later this month. The state unit leaders of the Congress, Samajwadi Party and RLD welcomed Deoband's demand and agreed with the Islamic seminary's stand that his presence would offend the sensibilities of the Muslim community. Rushdie, who has been periodically targeted by the Muslim street for his 1998 novel The Satanic Versus, is scheduled to participate in a discussion on 'Inglish, Amlish, Hinglish: The chutnification of English' at Jaipur.

NEW YORK: Even as uncertainty looms over Salman Rushdie's appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival , the India-born author himself is not giving any hints about his plans to visit India and has maintained a stoic silence on Twitter where he has been a regular commentator. The 'Midnight's Children' author has logged on to the microblogging site Twitter regularly and commented on various issues, occasionally tweeting several times a day. However there has been no activity on his Twitter account since the beginning of the week.

MUMBAI: A day after Salman Rushdie cancelled his India visit citing intelligence inputs that "paid assassins" from Mumbai were out to eliminate him, Maharashtra police today said they had no such information about threat to the controversial author. "When we had no information that gangsters or paid assassins from Mumbai underworld had planned to eliminate Salman Rushdie how could we have shared it to anybody," Maharashtra Director General of Police K Subramaniam told PTI. He, however, said he was not aware if Rajasthan police had any such inputs and had shared information with Rushdie.

JAIPUR: Ending the suspense, Jaipur Literature Festival organisers today said the video session with the controversial author Salman Rushdie will take place as planned after Rajasthan government gave the go ahead. "We have received information that there was no requirement of any permission," Festival producer Sanjoy Roy told reporters. The five-day festival ends today. The Rushdie session ---Midnight's Child ---is planned for 3.45 pm where the India-born author will discuss his childhood, his work, problems faced in the past years and the adaptation of his novel Midnight's Children into a film.

NEW YORK: India-born author Salman Rushdie says he chose the alias 'Joseph Anton' during his years in hiding in the wake of an Iranian 'fatwa' as he was advised against using an Indian name, recalling that it felt "worse" to not just lose his name but also ethnicity. "They told me not to choose an Indian name, to make it even worse you give up not only your name but the ethnicity of your name," 65-year-old Rushdie said during an appearance yesterday at the New York Public Library, where he spoke about his memoir 'Joseph Anton'.

NEW DELHI: The controversy over Salman Rushdie's visit to the Jaipur literature festival took another turn on Sunday after he accused the Rajasthan Police of lying about a death threat to keep him away. Chief minister Ashok Gehlot denied the allegation, saying his government had made all arrangements for his security after getting an advisory from the central government about a threat to his life. Giving vent to his ire through microblogging site Twitter , Rushdie said "Rajasthan Police invented plot to keep away Rushdie, I've investigated, & believe that I was indeed lied to. I am outraged and very angry.

BAREILLY: With Salman Rushdie's proposed visit to India kicking up a political row, Law Minister Salman Khurshid said anybody having objections to the provision of PIO not requiring visa to visit the country can take up their complaints with the competent authority or courts. "This should not be made an issue. These are matters of normal processes of legal rights. There is not any special decision that is being taken by the Congress government anywhere either in the state or at the Centre," he said in response to repeated queries on the issue.

JAIPUR: Will Salman Rushdie be allowed to address a session over video link, remained the dominant question on the penultimate day of the five-day Jaipur Literature Festival , marked by threats of legal action, electoral calculations and the politics of intolerance. Negotiations appeared to be underway between the state government and the organisers on late Monday evening over a session that could become a festival highlight. The unseemly controversy over the author's attendance - which escalated after some authors read excerpts from the Satanic Verses, Rushdie's 1988 banned novel - overwhelmed this year's edition of the event, which has grown quickly to be counted among the world's biggest literary events.

Dubbing the controversy surrounding controversial author Salman Rushdie as a case of "match fixing" between intelligence agencies and "jehadis", BJP today accused the Congress of using it to gain political mileage in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. "It is a clear case of match fixing between intelligence agencies and jehadis in which the Congress government of Rajasthan played a supportive and active role," BJP chief spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters here. He said the Rajasthan government has not denied statements of Rushdie and the sponsors of the Jaipur Literature Festival about intelligence inputs that "paid assassins" from Mumbai could target him. "But at the same time DGP of Maharashtra has gone on record to say that they had not provided any input to Rajasthan in this regard.